Update, April 13: Coachella’s set-times announcement came with two surprise reveals. Blink-182 is playing their first show with Tom DeLonge since 2014 on Friday, April 14, 6:45– 7:35 p.m. at the Sahara Tent. And electronic musician James Blake is taking the Do Lab stage that night at 8:30 p.m. — the same time as Gorillaz, in one of the more egregious overlaps of the weekend. It’s unclear if either of the musicians will return for the second weekend on April 21. Find set times, below.
Original story follows.
Coachella is going global. No, the festival is still descending upon the California desert from April 14–16 and 21–23, but this year’s headliners represent a more cross-cultural variety of music than ever. Bad Bunny, Blackpink, and Frank Ocean are set to top the 2023 billing for the festival’s second year back since the pandemic. All three are first-timers, although Ocean was previously set to headline in 2020 before the pandemic; organizers long ago confirmed he’d headline this year. Still no word on that album, though! Bad Bunny had been a top pick to headline, after a world-dominating tour around his world-dominating 2022 album Un Verano Sin Ti. And Blackpink’s billing represents the meteoric rise of K-pop in the U.S., after just four years ago, they became the first K-pop girl group to play an American festival. They’re now the first Asian act to headline Coachella, alongside Benito as the first Latino. It’s the first year that a single white act hasn’t topped the bill. It’s also the most ravenous group of fans Coachella could possibly get in one place: Blinks, Bad Bunny lovers who still can’t stop streaming his album, and Ocean fans ready to do anything for a snippet of new music.
And the stanning doesn’t stop up top. The lower bill is full of even more surprises, from the first show of that rumored Boygenius reunion to Björk’s first Stateside performances of Fossora to a rare Jai Paul show (not to be confused with Jai Wolf, playing the same day). Plus, breakout rappers Doechii, Flo Milli, Latto, and GloRilla are spread across the three days, while Saturday looks to be the day for the brooding, with Ethel Cain and Snail Mail joining Boygenius’s Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus on the schedule. It’s not all for millennials and Gen Z, either, with Blondie and the Breeders representing the classics on the lineup. And Calvin Harris is “returning to the desert,†meaning he didn’t nab a headlining spot despite previously topping the bill. (Another DJ returning? Idris Elba, because why not!) In keeping with the diversity up top, the lineup also includes Afrobeats ascendant Burna Boy and a slew of Latinx and Spanish performers, including RosalÃa, Becky G, and Kali Uchis. And you thought those Taylor Swift tickets were hard to get.